| |
PERHAPS I SOUND LIKE a broken record at this point. But... I’ve got to say that Parnissi is absolutely divine. Who thought I would ever say such a combination of words about a place I’ve been told was the underworld? It’s midday, and what I know now as downtown Parnissi—or as Percy likes to call it, “where the cool kids hang,” is packed with witches and wizards around my age. They’re either sipping tea and eating danishes at the local café or enjoying a game of croquet in a large field. The main attraction seems to be the sack toss tournament that’s drawing quite the crowd.
I agreed to go on a “date” with Percy if, and only if, he explains to me how and why he’s here. He says there aren’t any other humans around, aside from me, because I’m half-mortal. I hadn’t thought of it that way, but I guess I’m still as human as a human can get. It was only a few days ago that I discovered my magical bloodline.
Percy has confided in me that he feels comfortable around me because of my human side. He says it’s “relaxing” and “familiar” to have someone like me in Parnissi.
The only question I want an answer to is, “Why are you here?” I ask, voice to a whisper amongst the clamor in the café, Brioche. He and I are out on the patio, sipping honey tea and eating chocolate chip croissants.
Leaning backward in his chair, hands clasped over his belly, he says, “Vahilda.” Simply Vahilda is the answer to that question. When I press for more information, he changes the topic. “Tell me a little about you.”
“Percy,” I say between a sip of the delicious tea, “please don’t withhold information from me. You told me you were human. I simply cannot let that one go away.”
Percy worries his bottom lip with his teeth. “Like I told you yesterday,” he munches on the croissant, flaky bits rain on his baggy suit, “I’m kind of like her son. Kind of.”
“That still doesn’t answer my question—”
“I understand, Elyse.” He extends his hand across the tiled table, waggles his fingers in a request to hold my hand. “I’m not ready to share that story yet.” He frowns, and I can’t tell if it’s because I’ve declined to hold his hand by keeping mine gripped on my mug of tea or if his frown has anything to do with Vahilda.
“You lured me out of the house under false pretenses.” I struggle with keeping my tone even. How can he expect me to trust him if he can’t properly answer my question?
“I apologize for that, truly. I do.” His hand remains on the table, fingers gone limp. “I just... it’s really nice to have someone to talk to. No one here bats an eye at me. They know I don’t belong here. The witches and wizards haven’t even tried to befriend me.”
I know that feeling all too well. That sense of unbelonging, and the knowing that you’re different from the others around you. I’ve always existed as a wallflower among a village of towering trees in Yardenfeld. No one ever sees me so far beneath them. I’m basically invisible to them. All anyone saw me as was that strange girl who’s always jogging in the morning. Or the weird bookworm asleep on the park bench, snuggled up with a book.
“Vahilda is your best friend.” I haughtily sip my tea and wink at him playfully.
Percy flares his nostrils at me. “I guess.” He shrugs. “I can tell you this, though...” he peeks around the café, but no one even looks in our direction. “I signed a contract like you did.”
I nearly gag on bread. “Y-You did? Why?”
“Long story.”
I scowl at him. “You should take me home.”
“I’m sorry, honest.” His hand, still asking for mine, moves a touch closer to my hands, cupped around the mug. “I promise to tell you... soon.”
“Whatever.” Dusting off my purple hand-me-down dress, I’m on my feet and moving toward the café’s exit.
“Elyse.” Percy bumps into a few patrons as he barrels to me. “Wait for me.”
Outside, I am hypnotized by the street musician, playing a dashing tune on a piano and drums. Street vendors selling trinkets and doodads beckon me with the allure of pricey, nifty baubles. Ignoring the vendors and Percy shouting my name, I head eastward back to Vahilda’s house.
Percy is a sweet man and all, but I can’t honestly say that our short-lived date is anything special. My first date was a bust, but what did I expect? Well, for one, a lovely brunch like we had at the diner. And an exchange of pleasantries and batting of eyelashes, coyly. If it had gone further, we’d probably talk about our family. Or maybe not. I’ll skip that for now and jump right to the kiss—the perfect end to a perfect date.
One can only dream, right?
On the opposite side of the street, a quaint little bookstore guarded by statues of pigs on either side of the front door calls to me. It’s the lure of books, the escape to unknown worlds within the confines of each page, every word, and letter. I check both ways before I dash across the street and enter the bookstore. The smell of leather, old books, and ink warms my pitter-pattering heart. I know I should be on my way home, but I can’t help myself.
Rows of books line the four corners of the small store, every book old and worn with time. At the front, an elderly man nods at me and welcomes me with a smile. His long silver hair is tied in a ponytail, dappled face nearly obscured by thick spectacles almost as big as carriage wheels. He wears a dusty, tattered suit that appears to have been eaten by hungry moths.
“Welcome to the Tiny Shop of Books,” he says, “I’ve never seen your beautiful face before. How may I help you?”
“Um...” I twiddle my thumbs, eyes leaping from book to book. I would read them all if I could, but I’d be so distracted by knights in shining armor slaying dragons that I’d never complete my training for the Flower Trials. “I’m just looking around.”
“Let me know if you need anything. I’ll be right here.” He jitters in place and observes me as I do a bit of browsing.
The bell above the door jingles, announcing the arrival of three young adults about my age. Two identical men in long black cloaks that greatly emphasize their broad shoulders, and meaty arms, are preceded by a graceful woman. The woman has long, bone-straight black hair, almond skin, emerald eyes, and outfitted in a midnight black gown. She stomps toward the counter where the elderly man, whose face was once a doting smile, is now trembling in fear.
“It’s been a week; you bag of bones! Where is the copy of the new edition of the Floret Tome?” The grace I thought she exuded is not graceful at all. It’s pure brattiness. “The Flower Trials are in less than twelve days, and my Papa’s version is as old as your wrinkled hide.”
“And I told you I’d have some on Monday.” The owner presses his hands together in prayer. “You never showed up to claim your copy, so I sold it. I’ll have some next Monday—”
One of the twins jerks the old man by his shirt’s collar and lifts him off his feet. I clasp a hand over my mouth, gasping into my fingers.
“You piece of trash. Didn’t my girl tell you how important that book was to her?” The twin rattles the man like a sack of potatoes.
The other twin punches the man in the gut. The old man heaves a breath as the twin holding him drops him to the floor.
“Leave him alone.” Before I can think, I’m by the bookstore owner’s side, lifting his head in my hands. A warm trickle of blood stains my hands as the back of his head leaks. “Look what you’ve done.”
“I-I’ll be fine.” The old man groans.
“Mind your damn business.” The woman hisses at me, a lioness ready to bite. “This is between me and my grandpapa.”
“She’s your granddaughter?” I ask, disturbed by the senseless act of violence.
He groans out, “Yes.”
“If you were my grandfather, I’d treat you with far more respect than she does.” I assist the old man to stand, all the while staring knives at his granddaughter and her goonies.
Wiping the back of his head, he shutters. “Justine. I will not hesitate to call the authorities on you and your boyfriends.”
“Don’t you dare speak to them,” Justine woofs. “I can’t believe my only grandfather wouldn’t support his granddaughter.”
“He’s like those other sexist wizards,” a twin shakes his head disappointingly. “All they want is a sausage fest, the weirdoes. They’re scared that a woman will take their coveted seat.”
“My grandfather doesn’t believe in me.” Justine blinks her eyes to feign tears and forces a sad, mopey face. “I don’t need him!” She balls her hands. “I’ll be the first woman of the Elites, and, when that happens, I’ll burn this little rinky-dink store to the ground.”
Justine’s grandfather cackles as if not fazed by the blood dripping from his head or the punch to his gut that stole his breath. “A woman will never claim a seat—”
“You’re wrong.” I don’t know where this voice came from, but it’s a powerful voice that lurched from deep within me. Even in Parnissi, bigotry is alive and kicking. “Here, I thought you were a sweet old man, but you’re not. A woman will become an Elite.”
“At least she gets it.” Justine looks me up and down, then rolls her eyes.
“But it won’t be you,” I say, returning the up and down assessment she gave me. “It’ll be me.” This exchange in this tiny bookstore has provoked confidence in me that I didn’t think possible. Someone like Justine, who’s cruel to their unjustly chauvinistic grandfather, shouldn’t claim such a title. If I were part of the Elite, I’d change the rules and fix the broken system that allows wizards to exclude witches.
Justine rounds the counter. Her green eyes lethal, venomous. “Trash like you will never amount to anything.” My mum’s face overlays atop Justine’s, the insult too familiar that all I see, all I hear is my mum. “Have you looked in a mirror? Miss pudgy with no eyebrows?” she scoffs, a dainty hand under her chin.
I could rip her a new one, could shatter her self-esteem the same way mum has mine. But I don’t. It’ll be a waste of time and energy and just cruel. I won’t stoop to her level and insult her. Holding my chin high, I show her my backside as I sashay away to the exit. The twins snarl at me as I pass them and pry the door open to leave.
“Elyse!” Percy shouts from across the street. “I’ve been looking everywhere—”
An unholy scream from the pits of hell erupts behind me. Justine shrieks at the top of her lungs, wobbles outside and collapses in front of the bookstore on her knees. “S-She attacked my grandpapa! HELP!” she points an accusatory finger at me.
All commotion up and down the street comes to a screeching halt. Witches and wizards begin to surround the frantic woman who claims that I attacked her grandfather. Justine struggles for breath, acting as if she’s hyperventilating. Concerned gazes sweep up from the woman on the pavement to me—the woman with blood on her hands and dress.
“It’s not what it looks like.” I hold my stained hands in defense.
Percy forces through the gang of angry onlookers, who shake their heads judgmentally. “What’s going on.”
“I didn’t attack him,” I say. “They attacked him.” I gesture to the bookstore’s windows where the twins carry the owner. One holds the old man by the arms, and the other balances his legs in one meaty hand.
“Why would my boyfriends attack my grandpapa? Dana and Ashley would never do that.” Justine sniffles as she blows her nose into a handkerchief embroidered with the letter J. “Just look at her.”
Percy whispers in my ear. “This is bad. We should run.”
“I’m not running.” I shrug off his hand, pulling me away from the crowd. “I’ve done nothing wrong.”
“YOU!” A voice like nails on a chalkboard erupts from beside me. A slender man in a blue uniform approaches me and hooks his thumbs in his trousers’ belt loops. On his lapel, a jewel-encrusted, shield-shaped nameplate reads: “Harry Hollyshock, Patrol Wizard.”
“Come with me,” Harry says before he snatches me by my arm.
“But I didn’t attack him.” I rip my arm away and stand my ground.
The officer licks his lips, snarls, and lunges for me. He shoves me into the glass window of the bookstore; his hand is clasped around my throat a second later. A flash of Igbob’s nasty hands on me boils my blood to hellish temperatures. I ready to fight back, to strike the officer when Percy claws at Harry like a feral cat. Percy scratches the officer’s face; three vicious swipes knock Harry backward on his haunches.
“RUN!” Percy shouts.
I do as I’m told. Jostling the mob that’s circled the hysterical Justine and Percy attacking an officer, I break free of the horde and run for my life. Vahilda’s house is over five miles away, but the distance doesn’t faze me. I’ve run circles around Yardenfeld for most of my life, and my thirst for the thrill of running laps around my hometown is nothing compared to this. Comparatively, the sidewalks of Parnissi are void of the obstacles that are trash heaps, mice, and pigeons who’ve grown so accustomed to humans; they clog up major throughways. Parnissi is pristine, so clean that even the air I siphon into my lungs boosts my legs to pick up speed. There must be something magically laced in the air molecules because I’m hitting my runner’s high.
My dress, a restrictive sheath of cotton, rips down the middle. I’ll be exposed for all to see in my undergarments if this dress rips any further. However, the dress is the least of my worries as I hear the distinct sound of horse hooves to the pavement and a gruff voice demanding that I “stop.”
Something wooden whacks the back of my head with such force that I am knocked off my feet. The magical world spins around like a cyclone of blurry, vivid colors until it all fades to black.